Drunk
by Meruhen Wind
Summary: Now he couldn’t even hang out with his best friend--not that he would ever admit to the dobe that he considered him as such--because of that stupid, scheming, underhandedly annoying, dim-witted, nauseatingly-sweet, drunk Hyuuga—wait, DRUNK? xxSasuhinaxx


Author's Note: …yeah. Those of you who know me may be surprised to find I'm alive—those of you who don't know me, well…you haven't missed out on much? XD Anyway, my first Sasuhina fic in a long while. It's probably really lame and randomly shifts tones. Oh well. It was supposed to be a multi-chaptered story, but then I got too lazy to fill out the details and it turned into a one-shot. (Don't ask why…)

Anyway. I hope you guys enjoy. :)

* * *

He can't really recall why he was there at the bar in the first place.

Brooding might've been a reason—there were few things in life that Uchiha Sasuke liked better than brooding and fewer still that made people leave him alone. Getting drunk just for the heck of it might've been another possibility—that type of thing was also perfectly normal when you were in your early twenties. It was a long time ago, anyway.

What he _can_ recall is why he was there at the bar _alone_.

Uchiha Sasuke had been friend-dumped by one Uzumaki Naruto a full three hours beforehand when he'd invited the idiot to go with. Something about how he had to meet his equally idiotic girlfriend.

What was even worse was that the dumb Hyuuga was a classic example of a fangirl—irrationally blushing cheeks, annoyingly high voice, overexcited, panicky stutter and all. And like the classic example of a fangirl she was, Hyuuga Hinata seemed bent on monopolizing the dobe's time with cutesy dates and revolting couple stuff. Naruto, he thought to himself angrily as he took a rather fierce swig out of his glass, was _his_ (in a purely best-friend, brother-like relationship way. As much as he'd love disappointing the hundreds of female fans he himself had, Uchiha Sasuke was not, nor had ever been, gay.) And now he couldn't even hang out with his best friend (not that he would ever admit to the dobe that he considered him as such) when he wanted to because of that stupid, scheming, underhandedly annoying, dim-witted, nauseatingly-sweet, drunk Hyuuga—

Wait, _drunk_? Sasuke blinked slowly before he realized that _yes_, that _was_ Hinata sitting on the stool across the bar.

Actually, he corrected himself mentally, falling off her seat in a near-drunken stupor was more accurate.

Temporary confusion turned into full-fledged anger. He glared at her. "Hyuuga," he hissed at her, having walked across the room towards her in near record time.

Bleary eyes turned to look at him slowly. "Uchiha-kun. N-Nyshh to meet you," she stammered out, voice hinting otherwise.

"Where's Naruto?" he demanded.

"'Snot here," she said apologetically, turning around as if she expected Sasuke to leave now that Naruto's presence was out of the question. Well, he _was_. He had absolutely no reason to stay and baby-sit his best friend's girlfriend, especially when said girlfriend was stealing all of Naruto's time, and—

"Hey," a strange male voice interrupted him. "Is she your girl?"

"Heck no," he replied curtly.

"Family? You've got the same shade of hair," the voice—the bartender's—continued.

"Fifth cousins, probably," Sasuke answered distractedly.

"Well, you _know_ her, don't you?" the bartender asked, exasperated.

"Unfortunately," Sasuke agreed.

"Good. Then take her away," the bartender ordered.

"What?"

"She's very drunk and keeps asking for more. If she gets any, she'll end up in some sort of trouble. She says she doesn't have a family, so—"

"I _do_ have a family," Hinata piped up. "I _do_. It's just they won't come for me, right, Uchiha-kun? Neji-niisan might have, but Otou-sama won't let'm."

"She doesn't have a family," Sasuke assented. Fangirl or not, he knew full well from having a similar family background that a prestigious family like the Hyuuga wouldn't pick up a drunk heiress from the bar. (She was, however, still a fangirl.)

"Then _take _her," the bartender said, all but sliding Hinata over to Sasuke.

"No. I know her boyfriend, I'll call him," Sasuke said unwillingly.

"No," Hinata replied just as quickly. "Don't call Naruto-kun."

"What, you don't want him to know you're pathetically drunk?" Sasuke asked bitterly.

"No. He'll be worried. Beshides, Uchiha-kun…do you really want me to take up even more of hish time? Let me go home alone. It's fine. You'll do anything to make sure Naruto doeshn't waste his time worrying about idiotic shtuff like me being drunk at night, right?" Hinata hinted sharply.

Okay. So maybe the dumb girlfriend wasn't too dumb after all.

"I'll go home by myshhelf," Hinata insisted quietly, getting up from the stool and wobbling.

"Don't let her," the bartender said, "she's completely—"

_THUD_.

"—drunk," he finished sheepishly.

Completely passed out was more like it.

Uchiha Sasuke had never been a ladies' man—he had never been a gentleman either. Taking drunken girls home was not something he'd ever done.

Unfortunately, Hyuuga Hinata hadn't been wrong—he _would_ do anything to make sure that the dobe wouldn't worry. Uchiha Sasuke was currently piggy-backing a passed-out Hinata to her home (she did, after all, live only thirty-two blocks away, and Sasuke did _not_ feel like calling a taxi and dealing with any paparazzi scandal his taking home a drunk Hyuuga heiress would entail)—not an appealing task at all. For starters, her hundreds-of-dollars perfume (for her idiotic date with Naruto, after all) was mixing with the alcoholic scent, giving off a strong and slightly repulsive smell. As if it wasn't bad enough, she'd started hiccupping and sobbing at some point, just like he'd seen countless girls do in front of him when he'd turned the dow—

Oh.

Feeling rather like an idiot for the first time in his life, Sasuke finally realized why the Hyuuga hadn't wanted him to call Naruto.

"The dobe broke up with you, right?" he said aloud in spite of himself. _Serves you right_, he thought. _You're_ _just another idiotic fangirl who doesn't know when to call it quits_.

As soon as the words hit the cold air, he regretted it. A few seconds of silence passed before he sighed in relief. _Didn't hear me. Still passed out, after all_.

"N-no," a muffled voice whispered into his shoulder. "I…_I_ broke up with _him_."

"What?!" Sasuke asked, almost dropping her.

"I broke up with Naruto-kun," she repeated faintly.

"You're drunk," he said disgustedly. "Why would you break up with Naruto?"

"H-h-h-he doeshn't love me," she said softly. "He l-l-likesh Shakura. Being with me ish his way of trying to forget about her. He doeshn't know it, though—m-m-maybe that'sh what hurts. Naruto-kun doesn't know he doeshn't like me that way yet. Doeshn't know that he n-n-never will."

"You've got nothing to complain about," Sasuke said with a sudden flash of anger at the fact that this girl was complaining about his best friend. "He spends as much time as you want with you, doesn't he? He's nice to you—you can't say you don't make up about ninety percent of his world. You've been taking up a huge amount of his life these whole three months."

"I know," she said not unhappily. "He doesh everything whole-heartedly. He'sh nice to everybody. Naruto's too n-n-nice. I don't want to t-t-tr-trap him in that niceness. I don't deserve to."

"At least we agree on something," Sasuke muttered under his breath.

"Thank you," Hinata murmured back. Strangely enough, he couldn't detect any hint of sarcasm in her tone (although he doubted the heiress knew how to use it anyway.)

"What've you got to be thankful to me for?"

"A-anybody else would've told me I was wrong. Something about s-self-confidence—that if I t-t-tried hard enough, Naruto would s-see me for wh-wh-who I was. Th-that if you l-love someone hard enough, th-they'll turn and look at you. R-rubbish…like that."

"You love him?" Sasuke asked, trying to keep his voice casual. It was funny how when this Hyuuga said it it sounded different than the countless fangirls he'd known and heard it from before—maybe because it wasn't squealed right before giving him a hug-of-death, wasn't screamed into his ear or hollered just as she launched into a catfight with a dozen other girls.

"I love him," Hinata agreed, and it was funny how much _pain_ was in that sentence.

"You could have, you know. You could have stayed with him anyway. He might've fallen for you eventually. Even if he didn't, the dobe's a little on the slow side. It would've taken him a couple more months to realize he didn't. But he might've fallen for you," Sasuke found himself saying. Even if the amount of affection that Hinata offered Naruto as a fangirl was annoying and it was completely against Naruto's nature to fall for that type of girl (and it would screw him over as the forgotten best friend), the way Hinata said _love_ made it seem bearable—temporarily, anyway.

"It's not like Naruto," Hinata explained, and Sasuke found himself almost tolerating the alcohol she reeked of (heck, he realized, he probably reeked of it too—he'd had a few shots before noticing Hinata.)

"Huh?"

"He'sh suffering a s-s-setback. N-n-normally, the Naruto I love—he wouldn't hide behind another girl. He'd be honest about his feelings with Sakura. He'd keep chasing her, even if she's angry o-or teases him sometimes. H-he c-c-can't do that…while I'm around. Not while I'm his gi-girlfriend. If all I c-c-care about is owning Naruto-kun, I w-won't have Naruto-kun. Not the real Naruto-kun…not the happy one. All I'd be doing is b-being some sort of w-weak f-f-fangirl, not knowing when to quit—not knowing that Naruto-kun won't ever l-love me."

"So you're not entirely an idiot," he said aloud, suddenly aware that it might come across as harsh—suddenly aware that he wanted to take it back.

She didn't look angry—momentarily pained, but not surprised. "No. Not anymore."

She meant what she said, Sasuke realized—it wasn't one of those temporary depressions after a break-up that girls always seemed to get before it turned to anger and he had to issue a restraining order. Hinata, he realized, had no interest in acting like a fangirl.

She never had.

All of a sudden, Sasuke found himself carrying a person, a genuine person, on par with Sakura on a good day, on par with Itachi-niisan when he wasn't smothering him with his younger-brother complex.

All of a sudden, Sasuke found himself noticing that, beneath the sickening scent of nine-hundred-dollar perfume and potent alcohol, Hyuuga Hinata smelled faintly of lavender.

All of this happened quite some time ago (but, as expected of a prodigy, he still has a remarkably good memory.) He can still remember that he did _not_ all of a sudden fall in love with Hyuuga Hinata.

He can still remember that all of a sudden, said Hyuuga Hinata fell asleep and that, all of a sudden, her head leaning on his shoulder felt drastically different than it had when she'd only been passed out. (And, although he can still remember that all of a sudden he also blushed, it is something he'd never admit—even under pain of tickling by a stubborn-minded daughter who wants to know the full story about how 'kaa-san and 'tou-san got together.) Embarrassing secret or not, he reminds his daughter, he still has to get to the end of the story. Having inherited good sense from her father, she lets go with a disappointed scowl, prepared to bring it up at some later date.

Hinata woke up eventually—when he'd piggybacked her all the way to her doorstep.

"Th-thank you, Uchiha-kun," she attempted to smile sleepily at him with less of a slur in her voice and more of her usual timid hesitance.

"What for?" he asked gruffly, trying to dissipate any awkwardness the kind act had left him with.

"Being Naruto's best friend," she murmured, hand shakily turning the doorknob after fumbling with her keys.

It was a good response—probably one of the few that he could have respected. It wasn't until she was halfway into her house that he could find his voice.

"You're alright, Hyuuga," he said.

She looked at him straight in the eye, drunk but no alcohol tainting the sincerity of her expression as she replied, "You too."

Their daughter only sighs as she complains that that's got to be the dorkiest, least romantic good-night ever.

Uchiha Sasuke disagrees.

* * *

Author's Note: Right. My first posted completely "AU" AU. I realize it's rather OOC, but I figured a few changes would occur in personalities outside of the ninja world. (And Itachi has _too_ a younger-brother complex. XD) Sasuke's naturally possessive of Naruto no matter what the universe, I think (although what type of 'possessive' is usually up to the viewer's interpretation.) Written because I'm not too big of a fan of the entire "Hinata goes out with Naruto even though he's (intentionally or non-intentionally) using her to replace Sakura, he dumps her and she runs to (insert-character's-name-here)'s arms for comfort" plot. She's smarter than that—and she's a better judge of character too. She'd be the one to dump Naruto, I thought. And so this plot was born. ^-^

Ah, and those of you who are nice enough to read the author's notes get to read the paragraph I ended up cutting out just because it was getting nowhere:

He piggybacked Hinata all the way to her house. He planned on leaving her there—but a combination of guilt and gratitude—she _had_, in a roundabout way, given him his best friend back—as well as something else entirely made him hesitant to wake her up or leave her in the cold night. (So he broke into her house using mad ninja skills and left her there.)


End file.
